ALAPPUZHA: Despite the Supreme Court pulling up the central and state governments over the mismanagement of captive elephants, the owner of Elephant Park being run in Alappuzha has shown no signs of falling in line.
The promoters of the park are still luring customers to their illegal business, erecting big-size ad boards at the houseboat hub. Even on Wednesday, Deccan Chronicle spotted such an board.
This violation of law comes despite the social justice bench led by Justice Dipak Misra ordering the Kerala government to respond on how laws were flouted leading to the abuse of captive elephants during the festival held in April .
“All elephant parks in the state should be banned in the light of the ruling. But they are running illegally with political clout. There is no provision in the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, nor has the animal Welfare Board of India issued a registration certificate for any elephant parks in India so far. But the forest officials have often shown no interest in seizing elephants because the DFO does not earmark funds to feed elephants in custody”, says Mr Venkitachalam Secretary, Heritage Animal Task Force, who had earlier petitioned demanding seizure of elephants.
Assistant conservator (social forestry) of the district issued stop memo to the same park on September 12 last year following the Deccan Chronicle report titled ‘Illegal jumbo ride to rev up Onam’ that appeared on September 7.
G Krishnaprasad, owner of the Elephant Park and also leader of the Communist Party of India (CPI), had earlier told DC that they were running the park because forest officials had not found anything wrong with the four elephants in the park.
“All elephant are brought here as per State government rules. As many as 13 parks are still running in the state. In other States including Mizoram and Tamil Nadu, the governments themselves are taking the initiative to conduct such rides”, he had said.
An official in the forest range office here told DC that the park was running with the silent approval of the government. “We were told that the owner trying to get a special licence from the state government”, said the official
